Handheld portable electronic computing devices, such as radiotelephones and personal digital assistants (collectively referred to as “handheld devices”), often provide a text editor for entering alphanumeric characters, including punctuation marks and other special symbols. A text editor, embedded in a handheld device, operates in a manner similar to the manner a conventional text editor works with a PC or Macintosh for entering such characters: the text editor receives entered characters and optionally displays these characters on a display screen. A computer, equipped with a large screen such as a CRT and/or a large LCD, provides an adequate display area for multiple entries simultaneously without scrolling. However, a handheld device, which has a much smaller display screen (typically, between 5 and 16 lines for editing), offers a greater challenge for displaying multiple entries in a screen without scrolling; this challenge is increased where an entry requires multiple lines because the characters for that entry fill more than one line.
What is needed is a text editor system that automatically provides a display of as many lines of information for a designated entry as is permitted by the screen size, where scrolling is minimized. Preferably, the system should permit expansion of an entry to a maximum number of lines on the screen, as required for adequate display of a designated entry in an expanded mode, and should permit contraction of a non-designated entry to a single line where the circumstances do not require more. Preferably, the system should provide visually distinguishable entries where special circumstance exist.